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Current Architectural Publishing Trends and Information Access Challenges For the Educational Market: Survey Results

Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors
Column submitted by Janine Henri, UCLA Architecture, Design, and Digital Services Librarian

In preparation for a panel at the 2013 AASL conference in San Francisco, architecture school librarians were surveyed about architectural publishing trends and information access challenges. These survey results were used to formulate questions for the discussion session: Archizines, blogs, web portals, oh my! Current architectural publishing trends and information access challenges for the educational market (more details on this panel can be found on the conference program). Twenty-nine survey responses were submitted between February 22 and March 14, 2013. A compilation of the survey results is available here.

In general, although survey respondents see increasing amount of online content as a trend, they still note some reluctance on the part of publishers to adopt digital formats. Unfortunately, the majority of survey respondents do not see a trend towards an increasing amount of open source online publications. Device-specific content and lack of IP authentication or site licenses are identified as access barriers. Lack of content indexing, uncertain format longevity or preservation, and content embargoes are also seen as information access challenges, as are prohibitive cost structures or unacceptable licensing terms.

Seven months have passed since AASL members were surveyed and it is likely that some of the challenging titles identified this spring may no longer be of concern (e.g. 2g is now available through additional ebook platforms). Nevertheless, some access barriers are ongoing, and, no doubt, new ones will emerge. By identifying these challenges and discussing them with publishers or suppliers, and by sharing possible solutions with fellow members, AASL members can work together to advocate for the information needs of architecture students and faculty.

Architecture in the Mediated Environment of Contemporary Culture; A New Forum for Research and Communication

Graham James with Rachel Isaac-Menard (about AMPS – Ravensbourne University College; Florida State University)

ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY is a new online forum and academic resource repository and fully peer-reviewed, open access academic journal. ISSN 2050-9006

It is a forum for the analysis of architecture in the mediated environment of contemporary culture. It seeks to expand an understanding of architecture and its relationship with media, politics and society in its broadest sense. It is a unique project that combines the work of information specialists and academics.

The origins of the journal were in a collaboration between the two current editors on an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding bid. Although that particular bid was not successful, they developed the project further and it is now hosted on the web site. It is called Architecture as Political Image and investigates the use of architecture in political campaign imagery in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Identifying not only a lack of material on this particular subject research area, but on the sometimes direct relationships between politics and architecture in general, Dr Graham Cairns and Rachel Isaac Menard developed the project into the forum / journal ARCHITECTURE MEDIA POLITICS SOCIETY. The journal has now been running since September 2012 and intends to fill a subject void in current academic publishing.

Beyond this however, the project attempts to develop a closer and more dynamic relationship between academics, researchers and information specialists in a number of ways. The intention is to run a resource repository that has five specific functions.

The first of these functions is to offer a discussion forum and networking venue for information specialists in the areas of interest for the journal. A double blind peer reviewed paper, written by a librarian, will be published every two months. It will set the theme of a discussion forum between members of the Information Services Committee and external participants. Dedicated exclusively to librarians, it is hoped that informative discussions can take place and that networking can be instigated between users of the site.

The second and third functions of the repository are related to the journal’s overall themes. They are the AMPS Critical Review section which will be updated monthly and a Current Events section to be updated on a rolling basis. The critical reviews will be double blind peer reviewed and can be written by any contributor to AMPS. It is expected that the reviews will be primarily of books but can also include films, documentaries or any other relevant events or publications. The aim of the Current Events section is to offer a wider range of shorter reviews, conference postings and calls for papers etc. This listing will include publically available brief descriptions.

The fourth and fifth functions of the repository are more specifically related to the hosted project. They are a Websites Index – Archive and a Research Guide. The Websites Index lists sites currently active and dealing with political communication and / or the relationship between architecture and politics in terms of direct policy or image. The Research Guide lists printed and audio-visual materials on the same themes. The intention is to make the Websites Index an internationally accessible research source and eventually create an archive that will be presented for collection to a relevant institution such as the Library of Congress, the British Library and / or the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Research Guide will be an extensive and specialised bibliography categorised into materials relevant to political communication, architecture as contemporary symbolism and media studies. At the end of the “Architecture as Political Image” project, both a website index and bibliography will be set up based on the next hosted project.

The editors are also seeking to combine the skills and knowledge of researchers and information specialists through the medium of academic conferences. They are currently engaged in conversations with a number of international institutions about hosting a conference on the journal’s themes which will produce photographic and written materials for eventual archiving. This would include papers but also extended bibliographic lists and source indexes.

These innovative features are embedded in the standard structure of an academic journal. Here too however, a number of particular characteristics distinguish the project. Its theme is more explicit in its political slant than is normal and, in addition, it is explicit about its treatment of architecture a cultural phenomenon that cannot be divorced from other disciplines.

It publishes one article online each month and has the intention of publishing a printed book every two years. This book will contain more developed selected texts, and thus uses the electronic print option as a basis for more substantial printed publications. The electronic format also allows for reader and peer feedback and it is hoped that this can help authors develop their work and possibly function as a point of reference in itself.

The journal thus aims to move the academic printing and publication model in slightly new ways and, importantly, set up a more established and detailed collaboration between research and information than currently exists in academia or academic publishing generally.

www.architecturemps.com

Currently, Dr Graham Cairns is a Visiting Professor at Ravensbourne (University College), London, UK and Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, US. He will also be taking up a fellowship at California Institute of the Arts. gc@architecturemps.com Rachel Isaac-Menard teaches information literacy at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. ris@architecturemps.com

They run ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY as an independent project that is not exclusively associated with any single University. Rather, it is run in affiliation with a variety of international institutions. This too is an unusual, although not unique, characteristic of the journal that tries to ensure a wide range of participants and allow the project and journal to respond to different interests and factors that cross geographical and specific institutional concerns.

In all of these ways, the journal is seeking to tread new ground while aligning itself with some established practices and models. Thus far, its multi institutional basis has led to the publication of papers written in the US, the UK and Mexico. It is seeking to develop conferences in Canada and in Europe and, crucially, it brings together aspects of the typical institutional set up that remain too divorced; academia, research and information studies. It is hoped that this combination of academics and information services specialists will lead to both an interesting journal and a highly useful data resource.

Plagiarism by Design

March 17, 2014/in ACSA News AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors
Article submitted by Barret Havens, Assistant Professor and Outreach Librarian, Woodbury University

With so much emphasis on team-based projects and collaborative learning, the distinction between plagiarism and “sharing” can become blurry for students in any discipline. However, this distinction is especially difficult for students of architecture and other design-related disciplines to make. In her article, “New Twists on an Old Problem: Preventing Plagiarism and Enforcing Academic Integrity in an Art and Design School,” Beth Walker highlights a few reasons why this is the case. I have used her article to generate discussion in the information literacy course I have taught for several semesters now. Here, I will present some concerns unique to architecture and design schools with regard to plagiarism. Most have arisen from those discussions and my own musings on the topic.

An obvious reason why students in design-related disciplines may run afoul of academic honesty policies is the time crunch (48). Design-intensive majors, especially at the undergraduate level, are synonymous with all-nighters in studio and putting the finishing touches on projects hours—if not minutes—before they are due. Survival, rather than adherence to campus plagiarism policies may be an architecture student’s foremost concern after pulling an all-nighter in studio, regardless of whether the work requiring documentation is a major-sequence course or a writing course required of all undergraduates.

In addition, students have been encouraged to learn by imitating the masters for millennia (49). The recreation of another’s work or the incorporation of principles gleaned from case studies is a practical approach to learning. But where does one draw the line between “studying” and plagiarizing, and how do architecture faculty and architecture librarians convey to students how to draw that line for themselves?

Further complicating the matter is the fact that detecting plagiarism in visual representations is not easy to do. For instance, when comparing forms, how would architecture faculty or librarians establish that one form bears enough resemblance to another to determine that plagiarism has taken place? The landscape of “visual plagiarism” is a nebulous one indeed. Defining the rules and applying some objective method of defining plagiarism within this landscape is far more challenging than evaluating a case of text-based plagiarism.

And last, but not least: architecture students have not been asked, consistently, to cite the sources that have influenced their design projects. Instead, they are typically given a list of precedents that serve as a palette from which they might draw ideas or principles. Though they may, during reviews or pinups, discuss how and where they incorporated these ideas, written attribution is often overlooked. So, though they may have been asked on a relatively consistent basis to cite textual sources that have been incorporated into the academic writing they complete, architecture students may come to view visually-based works as an exception to the rule. Some may even generalize further that rules of plagiarism don’t apply to their discipline.

The key to tackling these challenges is communication. Librarians must continue to reach out (and reach out even further) to architecture faculty by offering resources and techniques for detecting plagiarism and citing sources, along with ways to bring students into the conversation. Librarians and architecture faculty must explore whether the two camps are even on the same page regarding the necessity of citing sources in the aforementioned scenarios. If they aren’t, then we may be sending mixed messages to students. By entering into a dialogue about where and when citing sources is necessary, architecture faculty and librarians can combine forces to enhance students’ understanding of plagiarism and how to avoid it. Time spent now by all parties will reap benefits down the road.

Walker, Beth. “New Twists on an Old Problem: Preventing Plagiarism and Enforcing Academic Integrity in an Art and Design School.” Art Documentation 28.1 (2009): 48-51. Print.

Association of Architecture School Librarians

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Kevin McMahon, Library Manager, Sci-Arc
Barbara Opar, Column editor

AASL is pleased to share with you this listing of architecture lectures which are freely available online. The list was compiled by Kevin McMahon, Library Manager at Sci-Arc. AASL welcomes additions to the list. You may post material under the comments section at the end of the AASL column.

Architecture lecture archives available online

11h45 Montre l’architecture, Video. Also at Vimeo, and DailyMotion.

Architectural Association, Video Archive.

The Architectural League of New York, Podcasts.

Architectural Record, Record Video.

ArchitectureLab, Videos & Interviews.

Architekturclips (by Urbanfilmlab.e.V.)

Architekturvideo (by Eric Strum)

Architettura.tv (by Synch)

Bartlett School of Architecture on Vimeo

The new age of information literacy; ACRL rethinks its standards

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors

ACRL (the Association of College and Research Libraries) is considered the source for standards and guidelines on academic libraries. ACRL is dedicated to helping the academic community understand the components of an excellent library. As such, in 2000, ACRL drafted Information Competency Standards for Higher Education and established benchmarks for information literacy competencies to assist students as well as librarians. Selection of the appropriate investigative methodology and development of a research plan are two such indicators. The past thirteen years, however, have seen a multitude of changes in the world as well as higher education. Recognizing this, in July 2011, ACRL created a task force charged with determining if the existing standards should be retained for another five year cycle. The task force recommended that the standards be extensively revised and the process began.

ACRL’s board then charged the task force to: “Update the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education so that they reflect the current thinking on such things as the creation and dissemination of knowledge, the changing global higher education and learning environment, the shift from information literacy to information fluency, and the expanding definition of information literacy to include multiple literacies, e.g., transliteracy, media literacy, digital literacy, etc.” http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/7329

The new standards-in draft form- will be released this December and will be posted on the ACRL website. The new version will retain many of the previous guidelines, minimize jargon and include affective outcomes. The standards will be aimed at maintaining continuity with the American Library Association’s School Library Standards for the 21^st Century. The standards will recognize new kinds of content such as scholarly communication and new digital formats will be included. Data curation abilities will be recognized and encouraged. Students as content creators and collaborative work will be among the new types of learning tools identified. In addition, disciplinary knowledge and threshold concepts will be described with their corresponding learning outcomes. The standards will also encourage students to develop metacognitive abilities and different parts of the brain. All this is aimed at broadening our idea and understanding of information literacy as well as accepting the impact of globalization on what is being taught.

The ACRL Task Force hopes that by putting greater emphasis upon visual, auditory, and data sources, learning outcomes will be improved, resulting in new and different opportunities for students, faculty and librarians to work together. The blending of competencies will begin to acknowledge changes in teaching methods and how students learn.

Copyright. Copyright! Copyright!!

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Association of Architecture School Librarians
by Barbara Opar, column editor

All we ever seem to hear about in the academic press is copyright and the intellectual property issues being raised about compliance. But, now a number of academic libraries – Cornell, Duke, Emory, Johns Hopkins, the University of California, the University of Florida, the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin are joining together to address “orphan works” in their collections and to work to make them accessible within their own institutions.

“Orphan works” are out-of-print materials, mostly books, that are still subject to copyright, but whose copyright holders cannot be identified or located despite concentrated efforts to do so.

The libraries noted above are identifying works being previously scanned and archived in the HathiTrust Digital Library. HathiTrust is a partnership of more than fifty major research institutions (and growing) working to share, archive and preserve their combined collections of digitized books and journals. The HathiTrust has collected and organized over nine million volumes, a high percentage of which fall into the category of “orphan works”.

The institutional members are committed to a careful review of copyright for any titles before making them available digitally. Members must also own print copies of the titles and restrict access to members of their respective communities. Online access is authenticated by the user with their university ID and password .

The Orphan Works Project should improve access to a large amount of scholarly material that has been digitally unavailable due to copyright concerns. Because the Orphan Works Project limits access to members of individual institutions, it adheres to the Copyright Act’s “fair use” provision, which allows limited reproduction of works for scholarly purposes. This differs from the Google Books project which wanted to make such works accessible online without permission from copyright owners. Hence that resulting lawsuit and subsequent issues. This new project should be a win-win for both sides of the copyright debate.

Open-Source Architecture: Housing Crisis Solution or More Potential Harm than Good?

March 17, 2014/in ACSA News AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors
Article submitted by Barret Havens, Assistant Professor and Outreach Librarian, Woodbury University

Over the last decade the web has become synonymous with user-contributed content. The architecture-related realm of cyberspace is no exception. Blogs, e-zines, and wikis like Archiplanet and Archdaily invite users to comment on articles or even, in the case of the former, to author articles themselves. Like the controversy surrounding the reliability of Wikipedia, sites such as these have sparked debate and pose a challenge for librarians, professors and students alike when considering their usefulness–or lack thereof–in an academic context. With such publications, authority, accuracy, and even ethics have sometimes taken a backseat to convenience of access and speed of publication. Take, for instance, Archdaily’s admission of plagiarism when its publishers incorporated, without proper attribution, bits and pieces of an article that originally appeared in Architectural Record. (But even The New York Times and some noteworthy scholarly publications have admitted similar or even more egregious errors so critical thinking should not be reserved for any particular format of publishing.)

Lately, user-contributed architecture-related content has taken on a 3rd dimension: actual files that can be downloaded and used to produce structures. For example, the website Wikihouse, whose stated goal is to “allow anyone to design, download and ‘print’ CNC milled houses and components which can be assembled with minimal formal skills and training,” provides such files. The .dxf format cutting files the site makes available are capable of guiding a router as it cuts out what resemble plywood pieces of an oversized jigsaw puzzle. Pieces are combined to form components of the structure analogous to ribs that are light enough to be put into place by two people, and most joints are designed to function effectively without bolts, screws, or nails. Instead, a single peg hammered in with a wooden mallet (both of which can be printed using the router) joins pieces of the design.

The ease of production and assembly of these structures has profound implications, especially with regard to housing challenges in crisis areas where war, natural disaster, and poverty have ravaged the landscape. With a personal computer, a router, and a supply of plywood, housing could be produced so rapidly that the term “viral architecture” comes to mind.

But as the term “viral” can suggest an innocuous phenomenon that spreads rapidly, or, alternately, something that is capable of causing harm, we may consider the Wikihouse approach to design in a similar light. The potential harm lies in the lack of quality control. Wikihouse offers an affordable means to quick housing. But it offers little in the way of process or standards for testing and improving design.

For instance, though the Wikihouse website offers a status for each house design indicating whether it has been structurally checked, tested, or built, this author could find no qualifications for what constitutes a successful structural check or test. Furthermore, there are few critical details regarding the construction process–prospective builders who visit the site are provided with only the name of the informal organization that attempted construction and a very brief synopsis of their experience. In the case of the “Makerfaire Pavilion” design, for example, a team calling themselves “SketchUp” offered the following bit of helpful, albeit scant, advice: “we had problems with having to build onto improvised block footings, in future, be sure to establish a level surface or beam to make assembly easier (in the end, a car jack was used). A weak floor joint has been corrected in this model.” Not a lot to go on for a project that involves the production and assembly of dozens of interlocking pieces. (It should be noted, however, that further advice might be sought through the Google Groups forums where the Wikihouse community discussions take place.)

Furthermore, only very basic principles and guidelines, along with some drawings providing examples of well-designed details, are offered by the Wikihouse site. With regard to safety, Wikihouse offers the following advice, the brevity and vagueness of which suggest its appropriateness as a fortune cookie fortune: “design in such a way as to offer maximum provision for the safety, security and health.”

Wikihouse’s relaxed approach to process and critique is not much of an endorsement to one whom might consider dedicating a serious stack of plywood and a couple days’ worth of effort. But the potential benefit of evolving and implementing these designs, especially in the aforementioned areas of great need, warrants continued exploration. In light of this, and the strong emphasis on social responsibility and problem-based learning in academic architecture programs around the world, could the dilemma of quality control posed by open source architecture present a learning opportunity? What if architecture students were to engage, through their coursework, in building, testing, and improving these open source designs? A student-led peer-review process could further the proliferation of a beneficial viral architecture in areas where housing solutions are desperately needed, improving the lives of thousands, if not millions.

SCI-Arc Media Archive

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

SCI-Arc

Column by Kevin McMahon, Library Manager, Sci-Arc

Barbara Opar, AASL column editor

WHAT IS IT? An online showcase of videos of public events held at SCI-Arc from 1972 to the present. The SMA is designed to be useful for students and scholars, but also to be easy to use and fun for anybody with an interest in architecture, Los Angeles and experimental design.

LOCATION: http://sma.sciarc.edu

LAUNCHED: September 28, 2012

AVERAGE VISITS PER MONTH: 8300

THE MATERIAL: In 1973 Ray Kappe invited Los Angeles Public Access Project, providers of community-produced public access programing for Theta Cable, to set up shop on the second floor of SCI-Arc’s facility at 1800 Berkeley Street. Within a year, SCI-Arc purchased their own equipment and began documenting Wednesday night lectures and other school events.

THE SITE: Planning began in earnest Fall 2009. Support from the Getty Foundation, the NEA, and a partnership with the MAK materialized Spring 2011. The digitization and video review process extended from Summer 2011 through February 2012, employing an extensive temporary staff who reviewed, described and subclipped all the videos.

SITE DESIGN: The interface was designed to focus attention on the videos. If the Explore page is not as elaborate as an academic library catalog, it’s because this site is both a catalog and a viewer.

VIDEOS AVAILABLE: 696, adding new & old material every week.

DATES COVERED: 1972 to now.

FEATURED SPEAKERS: 691, plus 121 introducers. 36 of the people mentioned in 2013 Pacific Standard Time events are represented in at least one video in SMA.

DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS: Searching the videos is facilitated by summaries ranging from 10 to 95 words each. The site contains over 200,000 words of text.

SUBJECT THEMES: 3133. The themes employ a controlled vocabulary, complimenting the natural language narrative video descriptions (see the selection on the back of this page).

EXHIBITS: Only 5, so far. Later this Spring the site will begin regularly adding provocative selections from the archive selected by guest curators.

POSTERS: 105, and counting. It’s hoped that alumni and faculty will be able to fill in the chronological gaps.

EDITING? The videos are presented as found: none have been edited or technically sweetened.

COMPLETENESS? The Archive will never be done. New material is added every week, and previously unknown old material is discovered regularly.

OUTSIDE USE? SMA’s policy is that the videos now exist exclusively online, within the context of the Media Archive site. Anyone working on a presentation, media project or exhibit should explore ways of linking to the videos as they appear in the site. Bibliographic citations are available for all videos and posters.

FOR MORE INFO: See the ABOUT pages for more about the videos and the site.

CONTACT: archive@sciarc.edu

CRIT: The Journal of the American Institute of Architecture Students

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Crit2

Crit3

Column written by George Guarino, CRIT editor
Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors

The official journal of the American Institute of Architecture Students began as Telesis, first published in 1976 by AIAS President Jerry Compton of SCI-ARC and Vice President Robert Rosenfeld of UC-Berkeley. The publication was renamed Crit the following year by Rosenfeld. Ê37 years later, CRIT remains the only publication created, managed and produced by students of architecture.Ê It is also the only journal in the world that predominantly features student work as the primary source of content.

CRIT is an example of how aspiring architects see the world, and regularly features content directly relating to architecture as well as the place of architecture in the broader context of a global society.Ê Each issue features student design work, competitions and their winners, and articles that speak to the concerns of students today about topics such as sustainability, global integration, and the larger societal issues and challenges that we all face.

The primary purpose of CRIT from its initial production through today remains: to be a forum for the ideas and opinions of students in a world where young people are often relegated to lesser roles.Ê This publication allows for the voices of those who are sometimes discounted to be heard and taken seriously, for their work to be shown and recognized for the value it has and potentialÊ it can offer.

Over the last 37 years CRIT has undergone numerous revisions, from cover design, layouts, size and physical expression. As an expression of student work, CRIT is a continually evolving project that we hope will continue to change and adapt even as emerging professionals change to adapt to their own reality.Ê With the latest issue, #76, CRIT has launched a new cover, layout changes and full color interiors. Further, CRIT has expanded as a brand to other media including CRITnewsletter andÊ@CRITjournal on Twitter.

CRIT welcomes work of all varieties from students, both text and image oriented. We welcome your support in encouraging students to submit their work.Ê
Ê
As we refine CRIT’s design, layout, and content over the next year, the CRIT Editorial Team welcomes your feedback on Special Issue #76. Any questions or comments can be directed toÊCRIT@aias.org.Ê

Universities, colleges, libraries, and architectural firms seeking an institutional subscription to CRIT can contact the AIAS atÊmailbox@aias.orgÊor by phone at 202.626.7472.Ê

Digital Archives- the beginnings of a list

March 17, 2014/in AASL AASL /by Matrix Admin

Barbara Opar, column editor

Looking for images of regional architecture…or archives…online? This topic came up in several discussions at our recent Association of Architectural Librarians conferences and we would like to compile a list of digital archives. The beginning of such a list appears below, but this is, by no means, complete. We know that many regional repositories are not easy to find. AASL plans to gather this information and post it on our website: http://www.architecturelibrarians.org/. But we need your help. If you are aware of an architectural repository, especially one which includes image files, please contact us. You may email Barbara Opar (baopar@syr.edu) with the name and address of the collection. Your help is very much appreciated. Meanwhile, take a look at the list below.

National

American Memory (U.S.)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Built in America (U.S)

http://frontiers.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/

Making of America (U.S.)

http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/

Regional image collections

http://oedb.org/library/features/250-plus-killer-digital-libraries-and-archives#multi

Las Vegas Architecture and Buildings

http://library.nevada.edu/arch/lasvegas/index.html

Digital Archive of Newark Architecture